Angela Colantuono, president and managing director, SAP Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), says creating value has become the defining business issue.“Six months ago, everyone wanted to know how many hours AI could save. Today, the question is how much value it can create,” says Colantuono.“The conversations everyone’s having around AI, the most important thing is, how do you do it really well? It’s not just a chatbot that you’re putting in front of your existing systems. It’s a much more strategic, holistic view.”Angela Colantuono, president and managing director, SAP Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). For many organisations, that means moving beyond experimentation and embedding AI across end-to-end business processes rather than introducing another application for employees to learn. The gap between organisations that have done this and those still running pilots is widening and leaders know it, she says.Simplify before you automateWhile AI attracts much of the attention, Colantuono says data quality and process simplification remain among the biggest barriers to improving business performance.“What we know is organisations really struggle with getting access to data,” says Colantuono.“When data is not accurate, the results are not where they need to be, from AI or any other way of doing business.”She says many organisations have accumulated increasingly complex technology environments over time, making it harder to connect information across finance, human resources, procurement and operations.Rather than adding another layer of technology, businesses are simplifying end-to-end processes before embedding AI within them.“When you simplify the process, then technology can really deliver and the organisations getting this right aren’t just becoming more efficient, they’re becoming more capable of delivering outcomes that matter,” says Colantuono.The same thinking is reshaping technology investment.Colantuono says many organisations are trying to invert what she describes as the 80/20 technology burden, where most technology effort and funding is spent maintaining fragmented systems and integrations rather than improving business outcomes.“What we’ve seen over many years is organisations go with a best-of-breed approach in solving technology decisions,” she says.“What that’s meant is there’s been a considerable amount of money in integration.”Simplifying technology environments creates a stronger foundation for trusted data and allows AI to operate within existing workflows instead of becoming another disconnected tool.“When you use AI in the flow of work, it becomes part of how the business operates.”AI in practiceThe shift from experimentation to embedded AI is already becoming visible in customer-facing organisations.Furniture retailer Freedom has significantly expanded its online product range in recent years, increasing its catalogue from about 15,000 products to more than 70,000 as part of its strategy to offer customers an “endless aisle” experience.The expanded range created a new challenge.“As the catalogue rapidly scaled from 15,000 to over 70,000 products, identifying the right item became increasingly complex for customers,” says Federico Jalil, digital product manager at Freedom.Rather than treating AI as a standalone initiative, Freedom integrated AI-driven search and personalisation directly into the customer journey.By analysing customer intent through search queries, browsing behaviour, product interactions, add-to-cart activity and previous purchases, the retailer sought to make product discovery more relevant.The rollout produced immediate results.“We observed an immediate and measurable shift in customer behaviour on our website. This included a notable increase in search bar utilisation, alongside significantly higher conversion rates among customers who incorporated search into their browsing journey.”Federico Jalil, digital product manager at Freedom. The experience also reinforced another lesson emerging across Australian organisations: AI depends on reliable data.“Trusted customer and product data is fundamental to delivering an effective AI experience,” Jalil says.“As the well-known principle states, ‘garbage in, garbage out’, regardless of how advanced the AI model may be, poor-quality data will inevitably lead to poor-quality outcomes.”He says success depends less on collecting more information than ensuring existing information is accurate, properly indexed and structured appropriately.“We have also learned that success is not driven purely by data volume, but by ensuring the right data is properly indexed and structured, minimising noise and enabling more accurate and meaningful outputs from LLMs.”AI becomes a boardroom issueAI is becoming a boardroom issue rather than simply an IT initiative.Colantuono says conversations with directors at the Australian Institute of Company Directors highlighted that business leaders are asking how AI can create competitive advantage while ensuring organisations maintain appropriate levels of trust, ethics, compliance and security.“They have to balance opportunity with accountability.”“They have to ensure that investment decisions, risk frameworks and governance structures keep pace with the speed of change, but also enables organisations to scale AI confidently.”She says SAP approaches AI through three principles.“We want to make sure that it’s responsible, we want to make sure it’s reliable and we want to make sure it’s relevant.”Those discussions mirror conversations taking place with chief executives and chief information officers, where attention is shifting from deploying AI quickly to embedding it responsibly within core business operations.Colantuono says many of the same productivity questions are emerging across government agencies, where organisations are seeking productivity improvements that can enhance frontline service delivery while maintaining governance and accountability.From experimentation to executionAs AI capabilities continue to evolve, both Colantuono and Jalil point to a similar conclusion.Experimentation remains important, but lasting value comes from integrating AI into core business activities rather than treating it as a separate project.“At both a personal and professional level, I’m currently exploring the evolving landscape of AI platforms,” Jalil says.“Early interactions with these tools quickly highlight their capability, however, their true value becomes evident when they are embedded into core workflows or business functionality.”For organisations still early in their AI journey, he says the first step is identifying a genuine business problem.“Start small and scale from there, identify a clear challenge or friction point, and focus on opportunities that can be automated and delivered at scale,” Jalil says.Across government, retail and enterprise, Australian organisations are confronting many of the same questions around value, service delivery and responsible AI adoption, while being asked to achieve more with less.The next frontier is not simply embedding AI into the way we work but enabling organisations to redesign work so people, AI and business processes operate together to create entirely new levels of speed, agility and value.Organisations that combine trusted data, simplified processes and governed AI won’t simply automate existing work. They’ll build the foundations of the autonomous enterprise, where trusted data, intelligent applications and AI agents work together to help organisations anticipate, decide and increasingly act with confidence under human oversight.To explore how Australian organisations are moving from AI experimentation to real business outcomes, come to SAP NOW AI Tour at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on 12 August. Click here to secure a complimentary registration.